Patients with 'persistent vegetative state' (PVS) are often cited in the discussions of ethicists as examples of human beings who are unconscious and do not experience life, and a number of theoretical and practical recommendations have been made on that basis. This article examines the evidence and the theoretical rationale for the belief that people with PVS are unconscious and finds them wan...

A major debate in medical ethics is the request for futile treatment. The topic of medical futility requires discrete assessment in Iran for at least two reasons. First, the common principles and foundations of medical ethics have taken shape in the context of Western culture and secularism. Accordingly, the implementation of the same guidelines and codes of medical ethics as Western societies ...

The increasing progress in medical and health sciences has enhanced patient survival over the years. However, increased longevity without quality of life in terminally ill patients has been a challenging issue for care providers, especially nurses, since they are required to determine the futility or effectiveness of treatments. Futile care refers to the provision of medical care with futile th...

BACKGROUND In clinical trials, the opportunity for an early stop during an interim analysis (either for efficacy or for futility) may relevantly save time and financial resources. This is especially important, if the planning assumptions required for power calculation are based on a low level of evidence. For example, when including two primary endpoints in the confirmatory analysis, the power ...

One of the most difficult ethical dilemmas in pediatrics today arises when a child has complex chronic conditions that are not curable and cause discomfort with no prospect of any improvement on quality of life. In the context of medical futility, it is harmful to prolong medical treatment. The question is: How can medical treatment be discontinued when the child is not dependent on mechanical ...

Futility trials are efficient, early phase studies designed to eliminate potential interventions or treatments before moving into large and expensive, definitive phase III trials. In a futility trial, the null and alternative hypotheses are reversed in comparison with the usual superiority trial and are one-sided. The null hypothesis is that the intervention reaches or exceeds the required leve...

AIMS To determine the extent of futile care provided to critically ill children admitted to a paediatric intensive care setting. METHODS Prospective evaluation of consecutive admissions to a 20 bedded multidisciplinary paediatric intensive care unit of a North London teaching hospital over a nine month period. Three previously defined criteria for futility were used: (1) imminent demise futil...

Therapeutic futility in intensive care units (ICUs) is still little discussed among nursing professionals responsible for implementing prescribed procedures, which they might disagree on. Therefore, interviews were carried out with ICU nurses to understand how they are coping with the implementation of futile treatments. Based on the analysis of collected data, the following categories emerged:...